Projecting a New Empire: Formats, Social Meaning, and Mediality of Imperial Arabic in the Umayyad and Early Abbasid Periods

Description

Seventh and eighth-century papyri, inscriptions, and coins constitute the main evidence for the rise of Arabic as a hegemonic language emerging from the complex fabric of Graeco-Roman-Iranian Late Antiquity. This volume examines these sources in order to gauge the social ecology of Arabic writing within the broader late antique continuum. Starting from the functional interplay of Arabic with other languages in multilingual archives as well as the mediality of practices of public Arabic writing, the study correlates the rise of Arabic as an imperial language to social interactions: the negotiation between the Arab-Muslim imperial elite and non-Arabicized regional elites of the early Islamic empire. Using layout, formulae and technical terminology to trace common patterns and disruptions across sources from the Atlantic to Central Asia, the volume illuminates the distinctive formal varieties of official Umayyad and early Abbasid imperial documents compared to informal Arabic writings as well as to neighboring scribal traditions in other languages. The volume connects documentary practices to broader imperial policies, opening an unprecedented window into the strategies of governance that lay at the core of the early Islamic empire. Acknowledgements Contents List of Illustrations Note on Conventions Maps Introduction Becoming Empire Semantics of Empire Empires and Arab History Views on Early Islamic History A Review of the Documentary Evidence and Coping with its Limitations Previous Studies Approach and Methodology: Form over Substance The Definitional Trap: A Note on Terminology and Anachronism Timeframe Organization of this Study I Towards an Ecology of Documentary Arabic Introduction A Sudden Language: Pre-Islamic Arabic Writing and the Epigraphical Habit The Rise and Dissolution of “Imperial Arabic” (From Reichssprache to Lingua Franca) Concluding Remarks II Imperial Arabic: Between Text and Visual Text Introduction Images of the Word The Word and the Image: An Arab Late Antiquity From Image to Word The Eye of the Beholders Conclusion III Shaping Official Umayyad Arabic Introduction: Reichsarabisch or Early Islamic Official Arabic? If the Mountain Will Come: Arabic Letters If the Mountain Will Not Come: Official Inscriptions Umayyad Official Documentary Standard as Early Islamic Documentary Standard Conclusion IV A Culture of Ambivalence Negotiating “Arab Style” Shifting Boundaries between Scribal Cultures in the Umayyad Empire Parallel Scribal Traditions: Numismatics Parallel Scribal Traditions: Independent Arab-Style Scribal Practices Conclusion V An Empire of Words Regional Idiolects in the Use of Administrative Loanwords in Documentary Arabic The Loanwords in Imperial Arabic (640–800) Regional Diversity in the Use of Administrative Loanwords in Early Islamic Documentary Arabic Terminology and Regional Settings: The Role of Umayyad Syria and the Looming Shadow of Abbasid Iraq Conclusion Summary and Conclusions Appendices Appendix 1: Formal and Layout Structure of Early Islamic Arabic Official Letters Appendix 2: Formal and Layout Structure of Early Islamic Official Inscriptions Appendix 3: Comparative Table of Early Islamic Arab-style Letters Bibliography Indices General Index Index Locorum I: Papyri Index Locorum II: Inscriptions